Got CBEM56G-100 working (once), now cannot start pcmcia at all

After grabbing the new version (3.1.19) and playing with the port includes, I got the "beep-beep" rather than the "beep-boop". test_network showed the card was up, but no eth0 config'ed. Ok, I thought, let's reboot and have the network (previously configured via netconf) come up on its own.

Uh, uh. Now the base modules won't load (with or without a card inserted). I've tried reverting to includes that previously allowed the base services to load. No dice. It hangs because it's trying to access the CD-ROM!! Here is the "it's failing" log messages:

(Mandrake 7.1, so kernel 2.2.15, pcmcia 3.1.19)

Is it getting hung up on the port scan or the memory scan? Why would either cause a write to the hdb?